There are a lot of people these days willing to make money and foward industrializtion with little respect towards the enviroment and ecology. Please share stories of conservation happening in your area.

But Zappa, a rookie from Kasilof, Alaska, who is dedicating her first Iditarod race toward efforts to protect Bristol Bay salmon, is hanging in there and is about halfway to the finish line.

According to a report from the Nikolai checkpoint , Zappa said “the trail was a nightmare and when she camped last night she kept having flashbacks” of what she had just gone through – rocks, stumps, tussocks, open water, and the like.

In another report, Zappa said the Dalzell Gorge, a notoriously dangerous stretch of the trail even in good conditions, made her fear for her safety and that of her dog team.

“My mouth was dry and I needed a drink of water. When we’d get wedged by a tree or when I could hook my snow hook to a tree, I’d pause and take a drink and even pray a little. The dogs listened very well but covered the steep parts of the tail at a pretty good clip. There was no way to use a hook to stop with all the ice. The only way to stay stopped was to hook onto a tree.”